Tired of shaving all the time, I hear you either want laser or electrolysis. My area only has 2 electrolysis places and one isn’t accepting clients right now, the other looks like it is based out of a sketchy house. Do I commute an hour to another town or go to a mainstream laser location? What is better, what do I need to know?
If you have dark hair and pale skin, do laser first. You can get the stubborn hairs, grays, etc with electrolysis later. Laser is much quicker, less painful, and more cost effective. Some lasers claim to work on the tougher situations of dark skin, pale hair, or both, but I can’t vouch for those. Can’t hurt to go in for a consult.
I actually found laser way, waaaay more painful – and that was with more than half my hairs turned white already. Electro was just a bunch of tiny pokes, while laser felt like someone repeatedly punching me in the face.
That said, I’d still choose laser over electro if I could have, since it’s just easier/less hassle. (Quicker results, fewer treatments, my skin seemed to heal from it faster, etc).
For me, the only area that ever really sucked for laser was my upper lip. I guess it all sucked in the beginning but most of the beard went away on lower power settings pretty early on. Electrolysis is 30-60 minutes of drawn out torture every week or as often as you can go, AND you have to let your hair grow out so they have something to grab when they rip the follicle out of your face… Maybe each individual stab isn’t as bad as each laser pulse, but at least that’s just once a month and over in 10 minutes.
If I was made of money I would have taken a few weeks off work and gone to Electrolysis 5000 in Texas. 4 people working the entire day while you’re on drugs or at least numbed. One and done, except it’s actually two or three times to get all the hair cycles.
Thanks, It is something I keep putting off for fear of talking to the local professionals about consultation. Literally ghosted one shop because I was scared to call back, actually tried to get a consult at one of the electrolysis places because they explicitly listed trans services on the website… but they are the ones not accepting new clients right now.